Black Tickets, by Jayne Anne Philips

I finished this collection of short stories last night, and it is without question the bleakest, and most brutal work I've ever read. It makes The Road, by Cormac MacCarthy, look positively sunny in comparison.

There are 26 stories total in this collection, and many are barely over a page in length. One of the most memorable is Under The Boardwalk, clocking in at five paragraphs, and detailing a minister's adolescent child giving birth alone in a field, killing her newborn with a scythe ("she remembers the scythe against the grass, with its whispering rip.."), and then waking up the next morning to see her pet dogs bringing back pieces of the baby in their teeth.

Five paragraphs. And this is one of the SHORTER stories in the book.

There is not a single character in the story that has any hope, all are losers or marginalized in big and small ways.

In any other writers hands, this would have been a horrible read - but the author has cold down cold. She knows exactly how to get to you, all the way to the last lines of the stories. Many of which are like receiving a sucker punch in a street fight.

I had to put this collection down voluntarily three different times in the reading of it, to create a space of wellness or relief before continuing on to the end. I'm interested in her other work, as she's definitely a world-class writer, but not for a while yet if it's anything like what I've read here.

A scary, unflinching, remorseless read.

Obligatory Wikipedia entry.

Thoughts on Flann O'Brian's At Swim-Two-Birds....

Autobiographical reminiscence, part the first:
I retired to the couch of a day several past to begin reading At Swim-Two-Birds. First thoughts of said tome were indistinct, as the volume concerns itself rather narrowly with parodying Irish literature and culture, of which I have numerous intellectual gaps. Nevertheless, I persevered.

Nature of perseverance: dogged, curious, expectant.
Conclusion of the foregoing.

Excerpt from the Press on Steve Johnson attempting to read Flann O'Brian:
Today area man Steve Johnson began reading Flann O'Brian's novel, At Swim-Two-Birds. When asked how he was enjoying the novel, Mr. Johnson replied, "it seems to be much to do about three things: Finn MacCool, porter, and sleep."

Obligatory Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Swim-Two-Birds

Welcome! (January 1st)

This blog is to track my progress in reading all of the entries on the writer Donald Barthelme's Creative Writing Syllabus.

I will be recording impressions of these books here, mini-reviews, questions, and possible follow-up reads that branch off of these works.

Feel free to comment on anything on this list you have read, or suggestions you have for further reading.